Saturday, April 07, 2007

2007 MLB Preview - National League (Shortened)

Hmm...So, a funny thing happened to me on the way to writing a 2007 National League Preview.I had all the papers ready to go, all my opinions formed, etc.I even was prepared to hand the reigns to the Mets’ preview over to my buddy Vinny, since he’s the biggest Mets fan I know, and probably knows more about the Mets than anyone else I’ve ever met.

Last week, just after posting the American League Preview, I went to Boston for the weekend to hang out with a bunch of friends – first at the last concert for a group of my buddies’ whose band has been playing together for about five years, and then to see the college guys for our annual get-together.

Anyway, all the while I was up there, I had the knowledge in the back of my head that my life was about to change.

Monday morning, I’ll be accepting a new job.In Pittsburgh.Not exactly an easy commute from where I currently live, so I’ll be moving.In a month.Everything kind of came together in the past 7-10 days, and I made my decision to leave my current job sometime last night.

So, in terms of this page, and why we’re all here… I never actually sat down and put pen to paper (or, like I said before, fingers to keyboard).So I’m going to cop out and just write the following:

nThe Mets are good.Really good.Like maybe 100-win good.If they’re not in the World Series this season, it will be a product of a fairly thin rotation.Glavine, El Duque, and Petey (if/when he gets healthy) are a great top three.Problem is, they might never all be active at the same time this year. Time will tell.

nThe Cardinals do not have what it takes to repeat.They have three teams in their own division that got substantially better this offseason, while the Cardinals got worse.Their rotation is an abyss after Chris Carpenter.Their offense is Pujols and seven other guys.They don’t have it.

nThe Dodgers will be the team with the honor of losing to the Mets in the NLCS.They’ve got a solid pitching staff and a very dangerous lineup.In fact, the entire NL West (outside of Colorado) will be tough this year.They’ll beat up on each other all year long – whichever team comes out of that division will be battered and bruised… and the second best team in the league.

nThe Braves, Phillies, and Marlins will all be in the wild-card hunt in September.The NL East is awful good right now.By the way – Atlanta gets it.

So my apologies for a far-shortened preview of the National League.Unfortunately, life has stepped in and changed my plans.My next few weeks will be spent packing and looking for housing in the greater Pittsburgh area (anybody know anything about the area?), and trying to figure out where the hell I’m going to store my furniture for six months…

As for this space… I’ll try to keep updating this as much as I can until I move.I’ll certainly continue writing once I’m situated, which should be right around Mid-May.And I guess I’ll have to start following the Pirates.